Microbiome assembly on Drosophila body surfaces benefits the flies to combat fungal infections

Song Hong; Yanlei Sun; Dapeng Sun; Chengshu Wang

doi:10.1016/j.isci.2022.104408

Microbiome assembly on Drosophila body surfaces benefits the flies to combat fungal infections

iScience. 2022 May 14;25(6):104408. doi: 10.1016/j.isci.2022.104408. eCollection 2022 Jun 17.

Authors

Song Hong^{1

2}, Yanlei Sun^{1

2}, Dapeng Sun³, Chengshu Wang^{1

2

4}

Affiliations

¹ Key Laboratory of Insect Developmental and Evolutionary Biology, CAS Center for Excellence in Molecular Plant Sciences, Shanghai Institute of Plant Physiology and Ecology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shanghai 200032, China.
² CAS Center for Excellence in Biotic Interactions, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100049, China.
³ Institute of Crop Breeding and Cultivation, Shanghai Academy of Agricultural Sciences, Shanghai 201403, China.
⁴ School of Life Science and Technology, ShanghaiTech University, Shanghai 201210, China.

Abstract

In contrast to the well-characterized gut microbiomes, the composition and function of the insect body-surface microbiotas are still elusive and highly underexplored. Here we report the dynamic features of the Drosophila melanogaster surface microbiomes. It was found that the microbiomes assembled on fly surfaces could defend insects against fungal parasitic infections. The substantial increase of bacterial loads occurred within 10 days of fly eclosion, especially the expansion of Gilliamella species. The culturable bacteria such as Lactiplantibacillus plantarum could effectively inhibit fungal spore germinations, and the gnotobiotic addition of the isolated bacteria could substantially delay fungal infection of axenic flies. We found that the fly tarsal segments were largely accumulated with bacterial cells, which could accelerate cell dispersal onto different body parts to deter fungal spore germinations. Our findings will facilitate future investigations of the surface microbiotas affecting insect physiologies.

Keywords: Entomology; Microbiome; Mycology.